Infinite Loop —

AT&T unlocking some under-contract iPhones—for now

AT&T: it shouldn't happen; there's been no policy change.

AT&T appears to be performing iPhone unlocks for some customers whose contracts are still in effect. According to an Ars forum thread, numerous posters were able to unlock their devices after submitting unlock requests to AT&T, despite the fact that many of them still had time—sometimes a lot of time—left on their contracts. This seems to go against AT&T's publicly stated policy that it only performs unlocks for users who are no longer in "active term commitments."

According to the thread, both iPhone 4 and 4S users have asked AT&T to unlock their devices after submitting a request through AT&T's Web form. A confirmation e-mail from AT&T tends to arrive within a day or so, at which point, users are instructed to back up their phones and perform a full restore from iTunes. The confirmation screen after performing the restore states that the device has been unlocked—it appears as if a new SIM card is not a requirement, though some said they only saw success after inserting a new SIM.

AT&T first announced in April that it would begin unlocking some iPhones, depending on if they meet the company's stringent requirements. The company confirmed that the iPhone being unlocked couldn't be under contract (either because your contract was up or you paid an Early Termination Fee) and your account must be in good standing for the request to be approved. But several posters in the thread said they had neither canceled their contracts nor had they completed their contracts with AT&T.

"I got this even though I'm 10 months into my 2 year contract," Ars poster lunarobverse wrote. "When I upgrade to the iPhone 5 next week, I'll still have to pay the ETF but it'll make selling my old iPhone (or handing it down to an iPhone-less friend) much easier."

"I was also able to get AT&T to unlock my 4S by filling out the online unlock request last week. I'm not even one year into my 2-year contract, so I'm not sure what their policy is," another poster named DarwinKS wrote.

Ars was able to confirm with one more poster that he was able to unlock his iPhone with more than a year left on his contract as well. He pointed out, however, that he has been an AT&T subscriber in good standing since the iPhone 3GS was introduced in 2009, which he believes may have had some bearing on the ability to obtain an unlock.

The downside is that not everybody appears to be having the same luck, indicating that it's more of a loophole than an actual change in company policy. As such, the way the company vets qualified customers could potentially change. AT&T confirmed to Ars that iPhone users who are still on contract should not qualify for an unlock:

"We offer qualifying customers the ability to unlock their AT&T iPhones online," AT&T spokesperson Seth Bloom told Ars. "The only requirements are that a customer’s account must be in good standing, their device cannot be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have fulfilled their contract term, upgraded under one of our upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee."

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui

I had the opposite happen, where they wouldn't unlock an old phone even though it was more than a year out of contract. I eventually got an "it's unlocked so restore it" email, but it wasn't unlocked. I gave up for the time being, life's too short and next time there is Verizon (please punch me for thinking that).

I have an iPhone 3g that has not been on contract for over 2 years and the folks at the ATT store told me they do not unlock iPhones and that I would have to take it to an Apple store to get that done. They didn't even ask what iPhone I had or any questions about my contract. They just flat said ATT stores don't unlock iPhones.

I think I need to go back and have a talk with them.

BTW, I have an iPhone 4 that replaced that phone and it has been off of contract for several months now.

I simply called and asked to have my iP4 unlocked about 2 weeks after being off contract with it. Took all of 5 mins on the phone and another 20-30min to back up and restore. I havent tried a pre-paid SIM yet but that will be my next step.

I had the opposite happen, where they wouldn't unlock an old phone even though it was more than a year out of contract. I eventually got an "it's unlocked so restore it" email, but it wasn't unlocked. I gave up for the time being, life's too short and next time there is Verizon (please punch me for thinking that).

Don't give up... I unlocked a 3GS recently that was almost a full year out of contract. It took three tries. The first time they said that I needed to supply the original receipt because I'd bought the phone without a contract (no, I bought it with a contract in an apple retail store and activated it there), and even though the unlock email was sent it was bogus. The second time it failed because I was "no longer an ATT customer" (correct, my number was ported away which triggered a cancellation). The third time it worked.

I use a separate pw for every site, with random lengths and none shorter than 10 chars.

I'm definitely amused. My bet is on an intern writing that page and no supervisor checked the code.

They're not asking for your online account web access password -- they are asking for your "Passcode" if you set one up (you probably haven't). I'm pretty sure the "Passcode" they are referring to is a telephone support PIN type of numeric code, and it may very well be limited to 8 characters.

Honestly, every time this subject comes up I always find the behavior of the telecoms to be terribly odd. Having an unlocked device has no effect upon contract commitments whatsoever. A customer still has to keep paying the agreed monthly rate, or else pay an ETF that should take care of the operator's costs. So why would AT&T (or anyone else) care? If anything, economics would seem to suggest that the very opposite would be desirable. An unlocked device can spend more time on someone else's network, and yet the user has to keep paying the same amount of money. An unlocked, on-contract phone should be more profitable then a locked on-contract phone, not less.

This is why carrier locked phones suck. They have no reason to deny an unlock considering you're still on a contract. We just had our AT&T iPhone overseas and requested an unlock by phone so we could use a local SIM and they denied it, leaving us unable to obtain internet access while we were there. So what do they want us to do, buy some special AT&T international data plan? Fuck that. I prefer my unlocked Nexus.

I've got a 3GS in a drawer that I no longer use (no longer activated so it doesn't have a phone number) I held on to it in case of the current phone getting broken/lost/stolen. How do I get that unlocked? I'm in good standing with ATT with current phones yada yada yada but I don't think they're going to help with an inactive phone.(sorry for the tech support question...)

Wow, people still think the carrier has to unlock your phone so you can sell it to someone else, to use on the same carrier? fail.

Unlocking is only so you can instet a Sim from a competing, but also frequency compatible, carrier. The only one of those I'm aware of in the USA for AT&T is T-mo, and they only do 2G for AT&T's iPhones.... This is not exactly something people are dying to get unless they're selling their phone for use overseas...

This is why carrier locked phones suck. They have no reason to deny an unlock considering you're still on a contract. We just had our AT&T iPhone overseas and requested an unlock by phone so we could use a local SIM and they denied it, leaving us unable to obtain internet access while we were there. So what do they want us to do, buy some special AT&T international data plan? Fuck that. I prefer my unlocked Nexus.

Its for this reason you can rent phones when traveling abroad. In most cases, doing so not only gives you access in foreign lands, it also costs LESS than international roaming. The only reason you need to unlock a phone is typically if you will need protrated, or permanant access to that phone outside of the USA. yes, you get a temporary phone number, but you can usually make arrangements (for a small fee) to have all your calls routed to that phone. Or, if you alreday have google voice, have AT&T forward your calls to your google number (free), and then have google forward over IP to your international line (free).

I've got a 3GS in a drawer that I no longer use (no longer activated so it doesn't have a phone number) I held on to it in case of the current phone getting broken/lost/stolen. How do I get that unlocked? I'm in good standing with ATT with current phones yada yada yada but I don't think they're going to help with an inactive phone.(sorry for the tech support question...)

I had the same issue. I just called them up, powered on the phone, gave them the IMEI, they processed it and it was unlocked after a few days.

We're living in 2012 and I can't believe there exists a modern (albeit slightly outdated) phone that's so questionably complicated to unlock (I say "questionably" because it seems random, sometimes it's easy sometimes it's hard). But that's the iPhone for you. Apple has some catching up to do, as do the telecoms. Consumers can "unlock" Android with ease, without needing to contact the telecoms at all. Just saying. And you can ask me why I bothered posting in an iPhone thread, but I'll preempt you and give you my answer: Because I can.

Consumers can "unlock" Android with ease, without needing to contact the telecoms at all.

Is this also true for CDMA models? (I have no idea how that works, if someone wants to take a Verizon-locked phone to Sprint.)

For CDMA phones you generally flash a modem firmware from a different carrier. But no, you would not be able to use a Verizon phone on Sprint or vice versa b/c even if the hardware is compatible, the carrier would be reluctant to activate the device on their network. However, some Sprint phones can be flashed to work on networks such as Boost Mobile or Virgin Mobile.

Honestly, every time this subject comes up I always find the behavior of the telecoms to be terribly odd. Having an unlocked device has no effect upon contract commitments whatsoever. A customer still has to keep paying the agreed monthly rate, or else pay an ETF that should take care of the operator's costs. So why would AT&T (or anyone else) care? If anything, economics would seem to suggest that the very opposite would be desirable. An unlocked device can spend more time on someone else's network, and yet the user has to keep paying the same amount of money. An unlocked, on-contract phone should be more profitable then a locked on-contract phone, not less.

That's ignoring the huge demographic of people who rotate cell phone carriers on a nearly monthly basis and frequently have their pay as you go phones off for days at a time until their next paycheck. That demographic is poor, and mostly black, not trying to sound racist, but that is the reality. Back when Cricket was on GSM acting as an MVNO for AT&T and T-mobile, you would have had tens of thousands of iPhones bought on contract and bumped over before the first monthly bill came due. Owing an ETF or bad credit reports means nothing to this demographic. As far as they would be concerned, Apple and AT&T were paid when they fronted $200 for the device. The same would happen today with people grabbing LTE versions from Verizon and having them flashed to MetroPCS and Virgin.

For the last two years or so, the cheapest way to buy a smart phone has been a willingness to meet a Craigslist seller near the "bad neighborhood" where they lived. Contrary to some people's assumptions, most are not lost or stolen, but situations where the person could no longer keep up with their monthly bill and switched to a PAYG or other carrier.

(I worked rent to own once upon a time... getting good phone numbers even a few months into a contract was frequently a PITA!)

I do believe that one of the requirements is that you cannot have any kind of black mark on your account within the past 12 months. Things such as having your service turned off due to missing a payment or having a past due balance on the account may DQ the person from having their phones unlocked. Even having cancelled numbers on the account maybe enough to DQ as well, probably depends on how long ago the line was cancelled though. And definitely how long a person has been with AT&T would be a big factor as to when or if their phone can be unlocked.

I had the opposite happen, where they wouldn't unlock an old phone even though it was more than a year out of contract. I eventually got an "it's unlocked so restore it" email, but it wasn't unlocked. I gave up for the time being, life's too short and next time there is Verizon (please punch me for thinking that).

This may not be the problem for you, but you have to do a full restore, not just a restore from backup for the unlock to take effect.

For CDMA phones you generally flash a modem firmware from a different carrier.

The AARP crowd is gonna love that one.

Hmmm.... Not quite old enough for AARP nor do I know how to flash firmware on a phone. But I am old enough to have used Sprint from 1999 to 2004, and Verizon from 2004 to now. Until I bought my iPhone when it came out for Verizon in 2010, I never got a new for two (or one) or extended my contract. Instead, I bought used phones from eBay or locally. I used Verizon phones with Sprint, and Sprint phones with Verizon. I even used Canadian CDMA phones. I may have even used stolen phones that were locked on one of the CDMA networks (never checked except I did buy from trusted sources).

Never flashed firmware, nor did Verizon or Sprint ever have a problem with my phone with someone else's logo on it. Call them up with the ID number, and pretty soon my phone number is on the phone. Have things changed? Why? Don't they want your business anymore? They don't have to supply hardware, and still get to charge full price for service.

I wonder, why does a phone need to be locked at all if you have signed a contractual obligation? The phones that I've bought from European carriers on 1 or two year contracts all came unlocked form the box.